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Showing contexts for: no interim injunction in Horlicks Ltd & Anr vs Heinz India Pvt Ltd on 15 March, 2019Matching Fragments
4. The suit was filed on 21st November 2017 and came up for hearing on 23rd November 2017. The order passed in the suit as well as in IA 13793 of 2017, the application seeking interim injunction read as under:
"Let the plaint be registered as a suit.
Issue summons in the suit and notice of-the application to the defendant.
Ms. Anuradha Sallhotra, Advocate accepts the summons and notice. She prays for and is permitted to file the written statement and reply within a period of two weeks. Replication/rejoinder, if any, be filed before the next date of hearing.
List the matter before Court for disposal of interim application on 03rd April, 2018.
The interim arrangement to continue."
6. It is thus seen that the interim arrangement put in place by the order dated 23rd November 2017 was directed to continue. The Defendant filed its written statement on 24th January 2018 and the Plaintiffs filed the replication thereto on 13th February 2018.
7. Following the filing of written submissions by the Plaintiffs on 17th April 2018 and the Defendant on 23rd April 2018, arguments commenced before the learned Single Judge on the application for interim injunction on 9th May 2018. The order passed on that date at the conclusion of the hearing reads as under:
(iv) For the purpose of interim injunction, the pleadings and material on record did not require any amendment. The nature of the modifications was such that it was within the scope of the submissions made in the plaint and the prayers sought by the Plaintiffs. It was for this reason perhaps the Plaintiff did not, for the purposes of the arguments in the interim injunction, seek to amend the pleadings. Referring to the decision in Rajesh Kumar Aggarwal v. K.K. Modi (2006) 4 SCC 385, Mr. Sibal submitted that amendments were only required to decide the real controversy between the parties; reduction by concession of the scope of controversy did not merit amendment, especially at the interim stage. Even in the memorandum of appeal, no plea was raised by the Plaintiffs that they had made an application to amend the pleadings which was declined by the learned Single Judge. There was no reason why the Plaintiffs could not have amended the pleadings even after the impugned order.
(b) The Plaintiffs seem to be making mutually contradictory claims. On the one hand, the Plaintiffs state that the modified advertisement is covered by the prayer clause both in the suit as well as the application for interim injunction and, therefore, there was no need to amend the pleadings for that purpose. On the other hand, it is contended that without such amendment of the pleadings, the learned Single Judge ought not to have proceeded to express any opinion on the modified advertisement. If indeed the modified advertisement also is covered by the prayers already made both in the suit as well as the application for interim injunction, then nothing precluded the learned Single Judge from proceeding to examine and discuss the modified advertisement in the impugned order. The learned Single Judge certainly could not have ignored the modified advertisement particularly in view of the undertaking given by the Defendant before the Court that it would, after 10th October 2018, publish only the modified advertisement and not the impugned advertisement.